


Knew Him

by GrumpyJenn



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 00:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11817381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn





	Knew Him

_"Then she never knew me at all..."_

He had said it out of pain and grief and anger. Good thing little Tali hadn't heard or understood.

Tony looked at the baby - toddler really - sleeping soundly in the corner of the couch. She sighed in her sleep and murmured something unintelligible. Tony wondered whether his baby daughter - his _daughter_! - was muttering words in Hebrew or English, or some baby language of her own.

And whether he would understand it when she did.

Because Ziva had been right, if overly cautious. He would have been... not angry, precisely, but annoyed, and certainly not _prepared_ for a child. Not that he was prepared _now_.

She hadn't given him the choice though, and that's what really burned; Ziva had not trusted him enough to even tell him she was pregnant, much less that she had given birth to his child. 

Tony had thought Ziva trusted him. Had been kind of proud that he was the only one she _did_ trust, fully.

God, he missed her.

Tali began to whimper and fidget, and Tony rushed to reassure her. "Shh, _Tinoket_ ," he said, hoping he wasn't saying something awful. He'd looked it up, thought _Tinoket_ meant 'baby girl,' but he wasn't at all sure it was right. Sort of like when he'd looked up _Aht lo leh-vahd_ \- 'You are not alone" - that time before Ziva had left. "Shhh, Baby Tali. Abba's here. I'm right here." His daughter subsided and cuddled into his chest.

Tony picked her up and stretched out along the couch, settling her slight weight onto his shoulder. 

"Wish you'd told me, Ziva," he whispered sleepily into the baby's hair. "I might've been shocked, but I'd have come around to loving her. Hell, I already _do_."

And just as he drifted off to sleep, Tony heard, softly, "I know..."

 


End file.
